Stephanie Doyle - Calculated Risk

Obviously no fire had been left burning, and the miniheaters had all been turned off-probably when they removed Arnold’s body-so there was no difference in the temperature once they stepped inside. The cabin consisted of only one room, though there was a curtain that separated what was basically an attached outhouse. Behind the curtain she could see an actual toilet bowl. That meant, at the very least, the cabin had running water.

But that’s about where the luxuries ended. Studying the space, Sabrina saw the narrow cot where Arnold had slept, the sink and small tub where he had washed, the hot plate and potbellied stove where he had cooked and the workstation where he had developed and protected genius.

The anachronism of the workstation in the primitive setting was startling. It was also a little humbling to know what he’d given up for his work. But she couldn’t think about that now. All of her focus had to be on the task at hand.

“There it is,” she pointed.

A monitor sat on the workstation. Swirls of computer-generated images flashed about the screen. Inside the seemingly innocuous machine was data that would pinpoint several leading terrorists’ locations.

Inside of it was her future. Her salvation. And if she was smart enough-frankly she thought she had an edge-Kahsan’s end.

Kahsan nodded and removed the pack he carried over his shoulder, dropping it at the boy’s feet.

“Let’s get to it, Mr. Ploxm. Make me believe I’ve picked the winning horse.”

He pushed the gun deeper into the boy’s ribs, and Sabrina could see the kid shake in reaction. But he did as instructed and bent over to pick up the pack. From it, he removed a rectangular piece of equipment. It looked like some kind of modified hard drive with a keyboard secured to the top of it. He extracted a few USB cables and began assembling the piece of equipment on the workstation next to Arnold’s computer.

Kevin connected his machine to a port on the back of the computer and on his keyboard hit a button. Instantly, the swirls on Arnold’s monitor were gone. In its place flashed a splash screen that prompted the user to key in a password.

“It’s a PC but this isn’t Windows OS,” he said, clearly surprised.

“Nope,” Sabrina confirmed. “Arnold didn’t believe in using anyone else’s operating system. He built this one himself.”

The kid seemed to absorb this information and continued to tap on the keys of his minicomputer. Only a few minutes passed in silence, but to the group it seemed infinitely longer.

“What’s taking so long?” Kahsan snapped. He stepped up behind the boy and placed the gun to his temple. “Do you need some added incentive?”

“You’re only scaring him,” Sabrina commented.

Leaning against the wall across from the workstation, she crossed her arms over her chest in an effort to appear casual even as she studied the room for potential weapons. So far the most dangerous item she’d spotted was the hot plate and the wood that was piled up by the stove. Neither would do much good against the SIG-Sauer.

Kahsan sneered at her. “We all have our methods of motivation.”

“Right. I gather it must take a tremendous amount of motivation to get someone to strap on a bomb and blow themselves up. And you seem to get people to do that all the time.”

“What can I say? I have a gift for inspiration.” He turned back to the boy. “Well?”

“You don’t get it, this isn’t like a normal hack. It’s his own operating system. I can’t use any of the backdoors I know.”

Kahsan took a deep almost yoga style breath and then released it. “You do understand time is of the essence.”

“I-I’m trying…but…”

“Try harder or die.”

Sabrina watched the kid wipe the sweat from his brow and ground her teeth together with frustration. He may have been a snot-nosed hacker, but he sure as hell didn’t deserve to die for it. If she let him attempt the password and he failed, the computer would blow. Not with any real force but enough to destroy the machine and possibly take off his hands depending on how much explosive material Arnold had used to booby-trap the thing. Certainly it would be enough to knock over Kahsan, which would give her the chance she needed to take him out.

She didn’t want to lose the precious data inside the computer, but if it was a question of taking Kahsan out or saving the data, Krueger had made it clear what her priority was. The safe bet would be to let the kid fail and trigger the explosion, giving her a window of opportunity. But looking at him standing there with his knees shaking, she knew she couldn’t do it.

It was possible Quinlan was right about her. That she was too much of a softy for this kind of work because, so help her, if something happened to Kevin, she didn’t know how she’d ever recover from the guilt.

Quinlan.

Where the hell was he? If only he would come, now, before she had to make a choice… No, she thought. She couldn’t count on him. This was her show.

She moved closer to the kid and watched as his fingers played over the keyboard of his machine. In a way she imagined this was what it must have been like to watch Mozart play the piano. And it reminded her of…well, her.

“I can try a shadow hit,” he muttered. “It will spin through all the possible combinations until it hits and-”

“No good,” Sabrina informed him. “Arnold’s got the machine booby-trapped.” It wasn’t information she’d planned on sharing, but she had to stop the kid before he started his program.

Kahsan looked at her suspiciously.

She merely shrugged. “What? You tossed me aside for some sixteen-year-old kid and I’m supposed to just tell you everything?”

He pointed the gun at her face. “You’re supposed to tell me everything or I’ll kill you.”

“You’ve got a one-track mind, you know that? Fine. He only gets two chances to get it right. If the second attempt fails…boom.”

“Boom?” Kahsan questioned.

“Boom,” Kevin mumbled.

Sabrina was really starting to fear the kid might just pass out. The fact that he’d managed not to wet his pants up until this point was rather impressive.

“Boom,” she reiterated. “Not enough to take out the cabin. Just the computer, and maybe some…appendages of anyone close to it. Arnold was paranoid. The only reason he allowed for two chances was so he wouldn’t blow his work up over a stupid typo.”

“I can try the combinations without actually entering them,” Kevin suggested eagerly. “My program will spin through all possibilities to find a match against what was last keyed in as a password. It’s just that I won’t know for certain if it fails until we actually try it. It’s more of a risk but it’s still an option.”

The kid was no dummy when it came to computers, that was a given, but he also knew a little something about life, too, she thought. Right now he believed his only chance of survival was proving to be more useful than she was. He was right.

Kahsan looked at her for corroboration and she shrugged. “It sounds feasible. Something I might try.”

He turned back to the boy, once more focusing the gun on him. “Do it.”

Again, he started to bang away at his keyboard. The machine gave off a mechanical hum and the room got quiet as more time passed.

His eyes lit up. He turned to Kahsan and actually smiled. “I got it. I have one we can try.”

“By all means.”

With trembling fingers the kid moved over to the monitor and, using the keyboard in front of it, typed in a nine-digit code of letters, numbers and signs that he believed was Arnold’s password. He hit the enter key with a tap of authority.

Sabrina wasn’t surprised when the password failed. “Access denied,” she read. “I hate that phrase.”